Experience the rainforest

Explore the rainforest without leaving the UK. The Living Rainforest is home to 700 species of plants and animals. Watch birds, butterflies, lizards and a two-toed sloth roam free in our tropical glasshouses.... Read more

Schools programme

Each year, The Living Rainforest's acclaimed education programme welcomes over 25,000 school children. Four tours are available, supporting key subjects in the Curriculum.... Read more

Our history

The Living Rainforest stands at the former site of one of Europe's leading orchid nurseries. In 1993, it re-opened as a rainforest visitor centre. Today, with registered educational charity status, we welcome over 90,000 visitors a year.... Read more

Solutions for sustainable living

The Trust for Sustainable Living, which runs The Living Rainforest, hosts a range of events on contemporary sustainability topics, including the annual International Schools Essay Competition & Debate and Schools Sustainability Challenge. Subscribe to our newsletter (below) for occasional news updates.... Read more

About Rainforests

Interact with the rainforest online

Shell Shock: South Asian Box Turtle

Thousands of south Asian box turtles are hunted every year in Southern Asia to meet huge demand for food and the international pet trade, as well as for prized ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine. The wild population now risks extinction, worsened by their slow reproduction that cannot replace those being taken fast enough.

Many other Asian turtles are facing a similar fate. Over half of the endemic species in now critically endangered or vulnerable. Local conservation projects are trying to help, together with awareness and action campaigns such as Shell-Shock in 2004-5. These programmes include finding sustainable alternatives, funding conservation, and discouraging people from buying shell products or medicines with turtle parts.

Our chelonian residents

Our South Asian box turtle is a new arrival to The Living Rainforest (via captive breeding). He joins a number of other turtles, tortuous, and terrapins, each with their own story. They include:

Red-eared terrapin/slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) from America. These are often kept as pets in the UK, but have escaped and are now living wild where have impacted upon insect populations and aquatic life, such as ducks.

Toad-headed Turtles (Phrynops geoffroanus) from South American. These are risk from changes to the Amazon River.

Homes Hingeback Tortoises (Kinixys homeana); a beautiful, but vulnerable species from central and west Africa.